New Day Rising

Apologies in advance for the belatedness of this entry, but I have spent the last three days in shock. Three days ago, Barack Obama won the election for president by a sizable margin. Obama received 65,302,008 votes, more than anyone else in history, and 52.5% of the popular vote, while Republican John McCain received 57,335,106 votes, and 46.2% of the vote. With that said, the electoral college also worked out heavily in Obama's favor, surprisingly. He nabbed 364 votes (270 needed to win), while McCain trailed with 164 votes. By 11 PM EST, Obama was projected as the winner to this much-anticipated election, and John McCain gave his concession speech around 11:30. Obama won some of the heavily contested swing states in this election, including Virginia (who last voted Democratic for Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964), North Carolina (who hadn't had a Democrat win the state since Jimmy Carter in 1976), Florida (the one deciding state for George W. Bush in 2000), and Ohio (which cost John Kerry the election in 2004). He also won Indiana by a hair, and put Iowa and New Mexico back in the blue column after Bush nabbed them in 2004.

That day, I was a complete wreck. I voted, and spent the day anxious, nervous and irritable over the slight chance that the so-called Bradley effect would come into play, and John McCain's platform of being a "comeback kid" would result in the voting booths. For the first few hours of the votes being counted, I tried distracting myself by not watching the coverage on TV. I did, however, keep calling my mother every 30 minutes, and acting like Brad Pitt in Se7en after Kevin Spacey delivered that box with his wife's head in it, and Morgan Freeman not showing him the contents of the box. I was eventually told that Obama had shot up past the 200 mark with McCain pretty far behind. I then rushed to my girlfriend's house to watch perhaps the most crucial part of the election coverage.

The races for Ohio, Virgina, and Florida were still being counted. The press refused to project a winner for any of those states until the votes were 100% counted. By then, he was at 209 electoral votes. Between 9 and 10 PM, McCain managed to nab North Dakota and Nebraska. A total of 8 electoral votes (3 for North Dakota, and 5 for Nebraska). Woo-hoo. How threatening! McCain was now at 145, and he had already won Texas' 34 electoral votes, and most of the South as expected. However, the game-changer came at 10 PM EST, when the polls closed in California, Oregon and Washington. It was projected that Obama was going to win those states, like the Democrats have done so in the past 16 years, which gave him the three states' combined 72 electoral votes, which brought him past the 270 mark. Senator Barack Obama was now projected to be the 44th President of the United States. Shortly thereafter, Ohio, Florida, and Virginia added to Obama's total, which really sealed the lid on the McCain campaign's coffin.

When Obama made it past the 270 mark, the whole country exploded. People were celebrating in the streets everywhere, even in other countries. African-American congregations in Atlanta were dancing in churches, Times Square was an explosion of cheer and hope finally realized after 8 years of darkness, many people were crying, text messages and phone calls were made everywhere, and it was just a defining moment in American history. Other than 9/11, this is by far the most memorable major event to occur in my lifetime. A man of African-American descent has finally made it to the White House. The Bush-era has been wiped out with a bang. And I can sleep better now.

With that said, what's next for this country that has been through divisiveness, discord, mismanagement, and corruption for the past 8 years? We have 2 wars, a bad economy, a joke of an education system, and a health care crisis long neglected by elitism and greed. An election of a candidate as powerful and invigorating as Obama doesn't magically change things overnight, you know.

I can say this though; Sarah Palin can go back to Alaska and not bother us for a while. While she's at home in Wasilla, she can study a globe (bitch thought Africa was a country), read the U.S. Constitution, and shut the fuck up! Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh can take a good hard look at their parties they're so vehemently supportive of and realize that "Hey! The GOP fucked up!" and think before they run their mouths off. I will now laugh my ass off whenever I see Sean Hannity's stupid looking face on TV (I used to scream at him, much like my grandfather did during The Price is Right). John McCain can write a book called "When Your Party is in Trouble, This is How You Lose an Election" and detail every fuck-up of his campaign. And the U.S. can also look forward to being respected again on the international stage.

And this is a personal memo from me to President-elect Obama,

You have earned the confidence and trust of a good amount of voters and citizens of this nation you are now representing. I think you know this, but you did not waltz into a perfect situation. There is a lot at stake here; consumer confidence, two costly wars, jingoism, home foreclosures, health care, the cost of school, the list goes on. With a lot of other voters, you have to prove yourself. You have to prove to them that you're not a Marxist, you won't blow them up, you won't overtax them, you'll effectively manage the wars we're in right now, and get us back on our feet again with regards to the economy. You also have to prove to the people who worked so hard on your behalf for you to win this damn thing that their support and dedication was not wasted or misguided. I understand that there is a lot of pressure on your half, but you always appeared to be mild-tempered, cool, and calculated on the campaign trail and the debates. Let that same suave attitude carry over to the executive branch, and show some bona fide leadership. This country needs it. Besides, it wouldn't hurt for a reelection bid in 2012 either!

You are also now an inevitable historic figure. Even two months before your administration starts, if a guy were to write a history book of the United States, you would be written as our nation's first black president. Now, we've come a long way since the days of slavery, Jim Crow and the Civil Rights Movement, but racism is still existent in this country, I'm afraid. There are still some people who don't trust African-Americans, even if they aren't Nazi sympathizers, or Klansmen. As the nation's first black president, you MUST earn the trust of the American people, so that people won't be so weary or divided on whether or not to elect African-Americans into the Oval Office in the near future. It took this nation over 200 hundred years to even have an African-American presidential nominee, nonetheless a winner, so don't screw it up! I'm not saying you will, nor do I believe you will for even a second, but those people exist out there.

You have earned a distinguished honor, President-elect Obama. You seem ready to take it on without a hitch, and you're choosing your cabinet members, and making plans for your presidency. Never lose sight of why you ran for president, never forget the hardworking Americans who have put their confidence in you, and don't get blinded by bipartisanship or corruption. We don't need that shit anymore. Eight years of it with Bush and his criminal friends was more than enough, and look where it got us. We're now more divided as people than we have been in a long time, we're practically bankrupt, and the line between classes only seems to get thinner. I know you probably can't fix everything during your first term, but give it all you have. You have a good guy as your Vice President (Mr. Joe Biden) who has been in the Senate since 1972, and you have some good people looking out for you if you need help.

Oh, and President-elect Obama? Do us another favor; be very careful out there, as you are now a target. Granted, all major politicians are targets for psychos and assassins, but you especially need to take caution. I have been fortunate enough not to deal with any presidential assassinations so far, and I don't want to have to deal with JFK-redux. I don't want to hear that a white supremacist (or Ted Nugent) decided to blow your head off! Save us the despair... please.